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Vivian Mooki

WITH the fall of apartheid, public places such as cemeteries were opened to all South Africans.

Yet it seems that race still determines which graves are maintained by council workers in Randfontein, west of Johannesburg.

On the one side of Greenhills cemetery, formerly known as Randgate, the graves are surrounded by well-manicured lawns.

This was once a whites-only cemetery, with impressive, imposing granite tombstones dating back to the 1920s.

Across a dirt road lies the blacks-only graveyard, which resembles a forest with wild trees, bushes and debris making it impossible to tell that it is a cemetery.

“Blacks were buried here, not on that side for white people and it pains us to see their final resting place neglected like this,” said Manyane Diale, a local undertaker.

“It has been like this forever. It has never been cleaned and you wonder how families of those lying here are supposed to visit without fear of being attacked,” he said.

Workers at the cemetery declined to comment when asked why the section previously reserved for black people was unkept.

But a former colleague of theirs, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of victimisation, said the man responsible for the maintenance of the cemetery, Dries Odendaal, prohibited workers from cleaning the black section.

“I worked there from as far back as 1997 and that section was never cleaned,” the man said, accusing Odendaal of refusing to supply the poison used to hamper grass growth on that side.

He said they were also prohibited from using the poison at the nearby Mohlakeng cemetery.

“When we asked, he would just ignore us,” the man said.

Diale said some of his clients resorted to hiring their own gardeners when they had burials in Mohlakeng.

“I feel they don’t care for the departed. The overgrown grass, especially at Greenhills, makes it impossible for people to visit the graves of their loved ones,” he said.

Odendaal said all cemeteries were maintained well.

“I am colourblind but unfortunately I cannot cut everywhere at once. We leave some areas because they are too rough for my machines – they need a tractor,” he said.

When he was told that the black section of the cemetery had been neglected for years, Odendaal said: “I don’t listen to people making allegations like that. I clean all areas.”

A member of the Randfontein mayoral committee, Mpho Nawa, said all cemeteries in Randfontein were maintained.

“There was never a commitment to exclude some of our four cemeteries. It would be shocking if some were not maintained, because we no longer have racial segregation.”

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